Haitian Graves

by Vicki Delany

  HAITIAN

  GRAVES

  HAITIAN

  GRAVES

  VICKI DELANY

  RAVEN BOOKS

  an imprint of

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Copyright © 2015 Vicki Delany

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Delany, Vicki, 1951–, author

  Haitian graves / Vicki Delany.

  (Rapid reads)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4598-0898-0 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-4598-0899-7 (pdf ).—

  ISBN 978-1-4598-0900-0 (epub)

  I. Title. II. Series: Rapid reads

  PS8557.E4239H35 2015 C813'.6 C2015-901550-2

  C2015-901551-0

  First published in the United States, 2015

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015934284

  Summary: In this work of crime fiction, RCMP Sergeant Ray Robertson is working with the United Nations in Haiti when he’s called to investigate the death of a Haitian woman. (RL 3.0)

  Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design by Jenn Playford

  Cover photography by Justin Ames

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  18 17 16 15 • 4 3 2 1

  For Karen, with many thanks for

  introducing me to Haiti.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ONE

  Haiti is all about color. Color and contrast. Masses of red, peach and white flowers twisting around barbed wire. Brightly painted houses in the crowded slums spilling down the hillside. Cheerful ribbons wound through schoolgirls’ hair as they walk through piles of garbage. The painted minibus taxis called tap-taps. Some of the tap-taps looking as though paint and rust are all that’s holding them together.

  Right now I wasn’t admiring the colors of one particular tap-tap. I was hitting my horn and yelling at the driver to watch where the heck he was going. Haiti is also all about the noise.

  I’ve driven in many third-world countries, but Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, is built into a mountainside. That adds another dimension to the thrill of it all.

  A deep chuckle came from the passenger seat. “At last you are getting the hang of driving in Haiti, mon ami,” Agent Pierre Lamothe said.

  I leaned on the horn again and yelled some of the Creole words I’d learned. The driver of the tap-tap wisely granted me an inch. I eased the truck into the gap.

  The three cops crammed into the truck bed laughed.

  My name’s Ray Robertson. In Canada I’m with the RCMP. In Haiti I’m attached to the UN. I’m a mentor and advisor to the pnh, the national police. A one-year posting.

  How did a boy from the mountains of British Columbia get here? I like the challenges of UN policing. I like believing I can make a difference. Maybe even do some good. I was in South Sudan for a while. Then I heard they were looking for French speakers to come to Haiti. My mom’s from Quebec, and we spoke French as much as English when I was a kid.

  I slammed on the brakes. I’d barely missed hitting a tall elegant woman in a crisply ironed white blouse and dark knee-length skirt. I didn’t like driving this ancient, rusty pickup. Not with three cops sitting in the back on creaky wooden benches. No seat belts, no springs, a paper-thin roof. A bad paint job that said we were the police. A light bar and sirens that sometimes worked.

  One of the men shouted something to the woman. She ducked her head and hurried away. I rapped on the back window and yelled at them to leave her alone. Harassing women on the street didn’t inspire trust in the police service.

  The men laughed again. Whether at the idea of respecting a woman or at my bad Creole, I didn’t know. I never knew what they were thinking.

  Today I was in the Petion-Ville area. On patrol, teaching my men to keep a sharp eye out for potential crime. Petion-Ville is the nice part of Port-au-Prince. Large houses with maids and gardeners. Steel gates and armed guards. Swimming pools and lush gardens behind walls trimmed with barbed wire. But the roads are as pitted and choked with debris and garbage as anyplace else in Haiti. Here and there gaps appear in the walls, showing piles of crumbling rubble. Sometimes the rubble spills into the road. Maybe from houses that have never been finished. Maybe from buildings that fell during the 2010 earthquake. That quake killed some 200,000 people and flattened the center of the capital city.

  On the way to the beach resorts on the north coast of the bay, a small cross is visible from the road. The cross marks the place where thousands of bodies were dumped. A desperate attempt to get rid of them before the heat of the tropics took its toll. A naked brown hill, unadorned by flowers, grass or trees. A hill full of the dead.

  The same area where the dictator Duvalier dumped truckloads of his enemies back in the day. Or so they say.

  We passed a rubble-strewn alley. I glanced down it, to make sure no cars were coming, and saw a man grab a girl’s arm and jerk her toward him. I was about to drive past when he lifted his hand and struck her, full in the face. She would have fallen had he not had a grip on her. I pulled the truck to a sudden halt.

  “What?” Pierre asked.

  “Let’s see what’s up.” I got out of the truck and headed into the alley. Pierre followed. The men in the back of the truck jumped down. People began to gather. In Haiti, I could always be counted on to draw a crowd.

  “Problem here?” The girl was older than I’d first thought but still a child. Fourteen, sixteen, maybe. She wore a short, tight white skirt that hadn’t been clean for a long time. Her blue tank top hung in bags over her thin chest. The skin on her knees was scraped, and her face was streaked with dirt. Her skin was the color of midnight, and her black eyes were large, round and frightened. She was as scared of my uniform as she was of the man assaulting her. The man himself was pasty white, short, bald and running to fat. He wore clean jeans and a black T-shirt.

  He glanced at the maple-leaf flag on the sleeve of my shirt. “No problem, officer,” he said in English. His accent was straight from the back streets of Glasgow. He didn’t let go of the girl’s arm.

  “Looks like a problem to me,” I said.

  “She tried to cheat me. I don’t like being cheated. Not by a baby whore.”

  “Let go of her,” I said.

  He looked at me for a long time. His grip tightened, and the girl whimpered. He gave her arm a twist and then let go. “Not worth it anyway.”

  “Are you telling me you approached this underage female for prostitution?” I said.

  “Who, me? Heck no, mate.” He turned to the Haitian cops. “She was going to take me to meet her older sister. Not that I’d do anything illegal, of course. I’m wanting to meet a nice lady to show me the city.”

  One of my men laughed. I rounded on him. “You think breaking the law is funny?”

/>   He blinked. “No, sir.”

  The girl looked as though she wanted to bolt. But she was surrounded by six uniformed men and a crowd of curious onlookers.

  “What’s your name?” I said to her.

  “Chantale.”

  “Chantale,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Do you have an older sister? Are your parents around? Who is taking care of you?”

  She shrugged.

  “Get lost,” I said to the Scotsman. “And don’t let me catch you looking for a tour guide again.”

  He sneered and then sauntered off. Making sure I got his point, he high-fived some of the men watching us. One rat-faced fellow broke away from the crowd and followed him. No doubt another “tour guide” operator.

  Prostitution is completely illegal in Haiti. Not that even the police care much about that. The earthquake killed entire families. Destroyed people’s livelihoods. Thousands of women found themselves alone. No home, no family, no money, no job. No hope. Sometimes you do what you have to, to survive. Due to the level of poverty, Haiti isn’t a popular destination for sex tourists. I was determined to do what I could to keep it that way. I’m a proud father of two beautiful daughters. It chills my blood sometimes when I think about what their lives would be like if they’d been born into a place like this, without my wife, Jenny, or me to protect them.

  Chantale edged away. I was about to let her go when one of my men catcalled her. The onlookers laughed. Chantale lowered her head in shame.

  “Pierre,” I said, “please ask Chantale not to leave.” I turned on the cop. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Just havin’ some fun, Ray. No harm done. Girl’s a whore.”

  “She’s little more than a child. Or didn’t you notice?”

  His two colleagues stepped back. They weren’t getting involved in this.

  “Yeah.” He leered. “I noticed.”

  I wanted to hit him. Instead, I thumbed my radio. I asked for a female officer ASAP. “Excitement’s over,” I shouted to the onlookers. “Be on your way. Officers, move these people along.”

  My men walked into the crowd. Chantale watched me. She still looked more frightened of me than of the man who’d hit her. “It’s okay,” I said in my lousy Creole. “Where’s your mother?”

  “Dead.”

  “A lady is coming who will take you to a nice place.”

  Most of the onlookers had gone about their business. A few remained. Chantale glanced at an older woman dressed in layers of swirling cloth. Not all the pimps were men. The woman gave me a long stare. Then she spat on the ground, turned and walked away.

  I tried to chat with Chantale. To talk about simple everyday things. She watched me through those huge eyes. The only thing she said to me the entire time we were together was that one word: dead.

  Soon a police car pulled up, and Agent Sophie Guillaume jumped out. Sophie was an attractive woman in her forties, with a deep love for her country and her people. Being a female cop in this macho society wasn’t easy, but she did her job with humor and passion.

  At the sight of the smiling woman, Chantale’s shell cracked, if only a little. She mumbled a greeting.

  “No need to ask what we have here,” Sophie said to me.

  “Do what you can,” I said.

  Sophie held out her hand. After a long pause, Chantale took it.

  My men and I got back into our truck, and I drove away. Pierre let out a long sigh, and I turned to him. “You think that was a waste of time?”

  “There are so many.”

  “One kid,” I said. “If I can save one kid, I’ve done enough.”

  The radio crackled. We didn’t get a lot of calls. Not many people bothered to phone the cops if they’d been robbed or attacked. That trust thing again.

  Pierre spoke into the radio. He repeated an address. Said he knew the street. Which was a good thing, as street signs were a rarity here. “Turn right up ahead,” he said to me. “Woman found dead at her home.”

  I slapped the button to turn on lights and sirens. In the back, the men whooped.

  No one hurried to get out of our way.

  We drove up the street called Delmas 40 and turned onto twisting side roads. The property was nestled into the side of the hill. The house was not visible behind a wall twelve feet high. The guard was waiting for us beside the open garage door. He hefted his shotgun, an Escort 12ga, and puffed out his chest. He grunted a greeting. Pierre grunted in return. The guard told us to go through the garage and up a short flight of stairs. A man stood at the top. He was dressed in a T-shirt that had once been yellow and a pair of trousers thick with dirt. His skin was very black, and his hair streaked with gray. He didn’t look into our eyes, and he said nothing. He opened the heavy steel gate, and we passed through. A verandah the length of a bowling alley stretched out in front of us. Groupings of white-painted wicker chairs with colorful cushions surrounded glass-top tables. A clean ashtray was on each table beside fresh flowers arranged in crystal vases. On one table there was an iron statue, about a foot high, of a long, thin, graceful woman. It was beautiful in its simplicity.

  The house was to my left. To the right, through another gate, down another set of steps, the patio and pool. I could see across the noisy, bustling city to the bare hills shimmering in the distance.

  I tore my eyes away from the view and looked down. The pool sparkled in the bright afternoon sun. A white man stood beside it. A body lay on the paving stones at his feet. It was a woman. Long black hair spread around her head and shoulders. She wore a blue bikini. She was not moving.

  The man turned at our approach. Pierre ordered his men to wait, and he and I went down to the pool. The man thrust his hand at me. I took it and we shook. He smelled of tobacco smoke.

  “Glad to see they sent a…advising officer,” he said to me. He ignored Pierre. He was pushing sixty, overweight, sweating in the heat. His accent was American. Midwest probably. “Mounties?” His beige pants and open-necked shirt were wet but drying quickly in the sun. His feet were bare. A pair of men’s handsewn Italian loafers lay beside the pool.

  “I’m Sergeant Ray Robertson. This is Agent Pierre Lamothe. You will be dealing with Agent Lamothe.”

  “Oh, right. Of course.” He had the grace to look apologetic. “Steve Hammond.”

  I crouched beside the woman. Large dark eyes stared into the sky, unblinking. I touched my fingers to her neck. No movement. At home, I would have called an ambulance. Hoping there was some faint spark of life deep in the woman’s still chest. But here, I knew nothing would arrive in time. She was young, in her midtwenties, and very pretty. Her flawless skin was the color of creamy coffee. Her small, slim body was fit and toned. Her breasts, under two triangles of blue fabric, were round and full.

  “Is this your daughter, Monsieur?” Pierre asked.

  Hammond coughed. He replied in badly accented French, “My wife. Marie. I came home early today. I’ve been putting in a lot of extra hours.” He switched to English. “I thought it would be nice to spend some time with the kids. I came in and found… Marie. She was in the pool. Face down. I pulled her out. I did CPR, but it was no use. I was a lifeguard back in school. A long time ago.” He choked on a laugh. “It’s like riding a bicycle, I guess.”

  “I see no bicycle.” Pierre glanced around. Sometimes he didn’t get English jokes.

  Bougainvillea climbed the walls. Royal and coconut palms and banana trees provided welcome shade. An umbrella shaded a lounge chair. A glass of clear liquid, a magazine and sunglasses rested on the side table. A big yellow beach towel was tossed over the back of the chair.

  I pushed myself to my feet. I tried not to wince as my knees creaked. Pierre spoke some English. Not good enough to interview a witness. I switched back to French. “Is anyone else in the house other than the guard and the man who let us in?”

  “My children are inside,” Hammond said. “Paulette, the housekeeper, is with them. I told her to keep them away.”

  “I will need
to speak to these children, as well as your staff,” Pierre said.

  “I don’t want my children disturbed.”

  “The death of their mother is a disturbing business,” Pierre said.

  “First, why don’t you tell us what happened,” I said.

  Hammond shivered despite the heat. He pointed to the towel. “Can you cover her? Please?”

  “Sure.” I got the towel. I laid it gently over the woman’s face. A row of ants was marching toward the body. Flies were beginning to gather.

  TWO

  Hammond came home from work early. He found his wife floating face down in the pool. He jumped in and tried CPR. No one else had been in the house. The housekeeper was fetching the children from school. Hammond didn’t know where the gardener was.

  The guard heard Hammond yelling for help. Together the two men pulled the body out of the pool. The guard then called the American embassy. The embassy phoned the police station. When Paulette and the children got home, Hammond told them to wait in the family room. The gardener finally showed up, and Hammond ordered him to meet the police when they arrived.

  Pierre had taken out his notebook. He wrote down Hammond’s statement. The three cops who’d come with us stood at the top of the stairs, watching and waiting. I wandered around the yard. Something niggled at the back of my mind. I peeled the towel away from the woman’s head. Her long hair was wet. I crouched down and gently turned her to one side. Traces of blood were still visible above her left ear. I touched the spot. Soft and squishy.

  I heard a sharp intake of breath above me. “Oh god,” Hammond said.

  “Looks like a blow to the head. A fresh one.”

  Pierre joined us. “Do you know anything about this, Mr. Hammond?”

  “No. And I don’t like your tone, officer. Marie is…was a good swimmer. I thought she might have had a heart attack or something. Not been able to get out of the pool.”

  “Perhaps she slipped,” Pierre said. “Hit her head as she fell in.”